Dornoch

Mill Farm CL is a lovely 5 ‘van site, and round the corner from the farmhouse was a little field with 5 hard standing pitches each with their own water and electric, and great views down to the sea. It was a gem of a site and we had the pick of the pitches. Once we'd chosen, pitched and put the awning up we headed into Dornoch. It's a lovely village that feels almost like the Cotswolds in style, we were lucky enough to see the highland show which was taking place today. As the games were half way through there was no-one on the gate so we avoided the £5.50 each to get in! We watched highland dancing, cycling, some big blokes tossing the caber, and then the obstacle race where people from the crowd had to jump a gate, climb a rope, pass through tyres and then run up a near vertical wooden wall drenched in water. It was crazy! Someone had obviously banned the health and safety guy and that was a good thing! After a brief look at the stalls we watched 'tip the bucket' where one person pushed a wheelbarrow with another person in it, who had to pass a metal rod through a small hole underneath a suspended bucket of water, miss and you got wet… strange, but very funny!

Phil was up and out at 8 to go and ride the Highland Wildcat trails which were 5 miles up the road from where we were staying. The ride is made up of 7km of red trails and 7km of black, and was really good fun, it climbs up from sea level at the village of Golspie up to the monument of the first Duke of Sutherland “The Wee Mannie” at 400m. The climb to the top is 7km long, and is claimed to be the longest singletrack climb of the purpose built trail centres, but once you get there you are rewarded with a 7km singletrack descent, claimed to be the longest in Scotland, rocks, jumps, drops and berms keep you entertained and grinning all the way down!
After lunch we went looking at caravans for sale (out of noseyness) as we’ve had it confirmed now that ours is written off, and we need an idea of what we can replace it with. We soon got bored of that and went to Dornoch beach where Prince played Frisbee in the sea while we both paddled out, this meant that Smudge had to follow us into the water, and she seemed to really enjoy it, running backwards and forwards and getting lots of praise!


Phil was up early again to go and ride the trails at Balblair and Carbisdale, these are classed as black and red trails totalling 12 miles if ridden together, the black is mainly riding on huge rock slabs and the trail designers have painted arrows on the rocks to point out which way to go, it was very entertaining to ride and quite different from anything else I’ve ridden so far, the red was shorter and included some nice twisty singletrack with a few drops and jumps thrown in.
First stop after that was the Glenmorangie Distillery where we paid £2.50 each for a tour and a dram, it was our first distillery tour so was quite interesting, and we got to see all the main areas of the factory including the mash tub, the stills, and the warehouse where the barrels are all stored for at least 10 years. While the barrels are in storage they loose 2% every year to evaporation (which they call the Angels share) and this makes the room smell thick with alcohol and stains the roof struts black, the tour guide pointed out that even the silver birch trees outside had turned black as a result! On an average weekday they usually fill 120 barrels a day, so the whisky is obviously in high demand! At the end of the tour we all went into the tasting room where we were given a generous dram of whisky to enjoy before we were led into the shop to try and convince us to buy a bottle!
We then drove out through the village of Tain to Tarbat Ness, a long spit of land that juts right out into the Moray Firth. At the tip is a now disused lighthouse which can be hired out for holidays, and lots of footpaths which lead you out to the rocks that plunge into the sea. It was a bit chilly in the wind so we had a quick trot around the site before hopping back in Tonks and heading to the small village of Portmahomack, we parked by the harbour and went for a walk along the lovely beach, it was quite busy because directly behind it is a static caravan site, and we stopped on the way back to Tonks at The Castle pub, where we sat on a bench out the front and had a pint of ale.


We went up the road the next day to a roadside café that we had seen a lot of since being here, it is next to a garage on the A9 and doesn’t look very inviting but every time we pass it it’s always busy, so we went to see what all the fuss is about! Inside we both ordered an all day breakfast and had a marvellous time stuffing ourselves silly, yum yum! To work off the breakfast we decided to go and park in Embo and walk the 2.5 miles along the beach to Dornoch and then walk back along the disused railway line. We parked at the far end of a huge static holiday park and headed out on the beach.. It started to rain half way along, and the little brolly had to come out to save us a few times, luckily just showers though. At one point we walked into the sea with Smudge following, we had to go deeper to avoid a huge bank of sea weed and she got all flustered and didn’t want to move! Phil had to go and stop her dithering and usher her along before she drowned in the tide! Poor Smudge! At Dornoch we walked across the golf course and past the hotel that Linda had stayed in years before, we then set out on the old railway line where we discovered loads of raspberries which we very industriously picked so that Linda could make some jam. In the evening we got chatting to our new neighbours, Mike and Dot, we sat outside between our ‘vans chatting and drank wine until it was too cold to stay out any longer!

We were both up at 7:00 this morning because we had to go back to Inverness where Linda had a dental appointment. We set the alarm to wake us up, but didn’t need to as the farms cockerels did a very good job of getting us up in time! The drive to Inverness took around an hour, but it was a good job that we left a bit of time as satnav took us to the wrong building, after asking directions we arrived at the very posh Centre for Health Science within the hospital grounds. While Phil took the dogs for an amble, Linda went into the very swish dental surgery where she met a very nice female dentist who told her she needed root canal treatment as the nerve was dying. As the pain is still bearable they agreed that it would be better to wait until we are home and get it sorted there, so lucky for Linda no treatment was needed! Linda then had an appointment at the hairdressers in Dornoch (its all go!). In the afternoon drove out to Golspie where we had a bit of lunch sat on the edge of the beach, then we headed up Ben Braggie, with Phil riding up the Highland Wildcat MTB route he had ridden a few days before and Linda taking the more direct walking route. Phil was at the top (where the monument is) first, and met some walkers who he took a group photo for, Linda was soon to follow so we had a brief break on the top and then it started raining! The walkers broke out their waterproofs and slipped them over their walking boots and hats, meanwhile Linda (in her sandals and t-shirt) got her little brolly out of her bag and popped that up, announcing that she needed to keep her new hairdo dry! They must’ve thought she was mad!

Move day the next day! Mike and Dot came over for a brew and we sat chatting for an hour or so before it was time for them to go fishing and us to hitch up. We waved them bye and set off for Thurso, the drive up on the A9 was very scenic ranging from lovely sea views with the oil rigs visible on the horizon to high moorland which was very barren and deserted. After turning off and driving down some very narrow lanes for a couple of miles we arrived at the very secluded West Murkie CL. The owner, Mrs Yeomans came out to greet us and gave us a choice of pitches which are all basically in different areas of her garden! We chose a spot hidden away down the back with a lovely view to the secluded private beach!